Ex-drug crime detective on trial

Michael David Blowers faces one charge each of supplying methamphetamine and cannabis between and a charge of stealing methamphetamine from a police exhibit locker. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Methamphetamine seized in motel raid cut with salt while stored in police exhibit storage lockup, court hears.

A senior drug crime detective gamed the police drug storage system and cut one big methamphetamine seizure with table salt to disguise his theft, the High Court in Whangarei was told yesterday.

Michael David Blowers, 44, faces one charge each of supplying methamphetamine and cannabis between June 1, 2011 and June 31, 2012, and a charge of stealing methamphetamine from a police exhibit locker on or about October 19, 2011.

Prosecutor Phil Hamlin said police seized 58g of methamphetamine in a raid on a motel in 2011. The police tested the drug for its purity and found a large portion of it had been removed and replaced with table salt.

"It looked the same, it weighed the same, but it was not the same," Mr Hamlin said. "The purity levels showed a significant difference between the two. Someone had carefully made up the 58g to make it look like the original, but it was not."

Evidence would show Blowers breached police drug storage protocols in the days before by moving the methamphetamine to a different storage area to which he had access, Hamlin said.

Prior to that raid police had already undertaken an employment investigation into failures by Blowers to account for drugs he was in charge of. But it wasn't suspected that he was stealing at that time, Mr Hamlin said.

Blowers is accused of using his position as head of the organised crime unit to steal drugs from the police drug storage lock up.

Blowers' defence counsel, Arthur Fairley, told the court his client strongly denied the accusations but would admit he made a lapse in judgment trusting the person named as his associate.

"Protocols are one thing but what happens in practice is another," Mr Fairley said.

The trial is set for two weeks and is expected to hear from 40 witnesses, mostly police.